The Social, Political and Personal Effects of Trans Media as told by Tre’vell Anderson
Queer history is not often what society’s heteronormative lens perceives it to be. Queer history dates back to a time when the word did not exist but people who expressed their truest selves did. Tre’vell Anderson, in their book “We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film” explores their own journey of self-discovery as bookmarked by queer media throughout the ages.
Anderson is a journalist who co-hosts podcasts FANTI and What a Day and advocates for trans visibility through their board position in the National Association of Black Journalists. Their inspiration for “We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film” was a culmination of the questions and comments they had on the history of trans images on the big screen.
“Often film and television in our culture is deemed as superfluous, having no meaning or not being important or significant. But, for so many of us film and TV has been a possibility model in terms of how we could potentially show up in the world and it became important in the telling of this history.”
The Morning Consult and Trevor Project reported that out of 2,000 American adults polled, only 29% said they know someone who identifies as transgender. Anderson is quick to point out that most people merely believe they haven’t.
“Trans people have always existed, we are existing in everybody’s community right now. Perhaps you don’t know that trans people exist in your community or you don’t know that you’ve met a trans person because you, the individual, have not made that space around you safe enough for that trans person to tell you.”
Hollywood’s Role
GLAAD has been tracking the presence of trans characters in its annual Where We Are on TV report for many years, noting that in the most recent season of TV analyzed, five percent of characters were openly trans. This represents a higher percentage than the number of openly trans Americans in recent data, meaning that many Americans likely have a better chance of encountering a trans person on TV than in their hometowns.
Many Americans have learned everything they know about the trans community from the media and the trans narratives they feature. Media is still showing transgender individuals in scenes and experiences that are intended to implant the idea that being transgender is synonymous with something “ridiculous, horrible and abhorrent,” as Anderson states. It plays a large role in not just the erasure of trans history but it creates a complacence in audiences where they don’t question these narratives of transgender people that are being constantly perpetuated.
“What people learn about us as trans people is coming from film and TV, coming from our cultural productions. So how does what we see on TV and in movies manifest as the very real violences that we as trans people, especially black trans people and especially black trans women see in film?”
In Anderson’s opinion, films like “Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs” that show transgender people or people in drag as killers, predators, groomers, and/or criminals promote dangerous ideas to their audiences. They feel that audiences are more inclined to accept seeing trans people on the screen being killed because, subconsciously, they do not value the lives of these characters as they might other characters in the story.
“You don’t even question it, which is evidence of how in a lot of ways, so many people, trans people included, become complicit in transphobia and anti-trans hate, transmisia... So a lot of my work at this moment is about getting people to realize the ways in which we are all complicit in the violence that we say we are against.”
However, Anderson points to the people who spearheaded trans visibility in media: Candis Cayne - the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character on the primetime show, Dirty Sexy Money, Chaz Bono - whose transitioning journey was highlighted in the documentary, Becoming Chaz, and was screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and Laverne Cox - the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and who later won a Daytime Emmy Award for being an executive producer on “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word.”
“You have these people but then you also have a generation, generations of trans folk who are working actors, working directors, producers, who are visible on social media and beyond at the same time.”
Political Backlash
Despite this progress, Anderson explains how they, in their book and in their life, see trans visibility as a double-edged sword. While this visibility is impactful in portraying the trans community in a complex and positive manner, it also places a spotlight on the community that can be exploited to stoke fear, political action, and in some cases, violence.
“That visibility, which has allowed so many people to be seen, which has allowed so many people to actualize their truth because they now have an example of what that could look like at the same time this means we are seeing the trans community in particular, but the LBGTQ+ community more broadly, facing legislative attack.”
Supporting the trans community has become highly politically charged. It is all too common for conservative social media users to post angry messages about listing personal pronouns or for conservative parents to appear on the news complaining about trans athletes competing against their children. Legislatively, this culture of outrage has resulted in laws over who can use which bathroom, bans on gender-affirming care, and even the regulation of speech surrounding LGBTQ+ issues in schools. These harmful policies dehumanize trans people, deny them basic human rights, and send a message that how trans people express themselves is intolerable.
Even before the term transgender existed, people who identified as such were present. In these instances, the lack of language perhaps offered them some reprieve from the hatred transgender people experience today. Anderson points out people like Marsha P. Johnson - who wasn’t calling herself a transgender woman - and Slyvester James Jr. - who wasn’t identifying with today’s terms like gender non-conforming or non-binary but was still expressing oneself in an androgynous manner. Now language is being weaponized by people who are too narrow-minded or hateful to expand their words and perspectives.
“By weaponizing the visibility of a community that folks feel like they don’t know because of language, while also exploiting what is just a natural gender ignorance, folks who don’t know this new language or haven’t heard it, who aren’t in social justice or socially component communities when it comes to transness and non-binary identity are doing this because it allows them to have a greater base of support of hate.”
Supporting the Trans Community
Anderson’s book, “How We See Each Other” is an essential resource in not only understanding the good and bad ways that transgender people have been represented in the media overtime, but also what storytellers should be doing to support the trans community when they need it most. Within its pages, Anderson encourages everyone to look at what content they are consuming and employ that awareness to create a safer environment for trans people in everyday life.
“What I’m talking about in the book is how so many of these images have helped me create out of the depths of my imagination this being, this person that I am today.”
While there exist people whose only intention is to erase and diminish, to tell the transgender community who they can and cannot be, Anderson preaches a brave and earnest freedom that has been the antidote to all of this hatred.
“I’m going to be who I know I am. I’m going to articulate myself based on the truth of my own internal knowing not what you or a doctor or the Republicans or the Democrats say we are.”
The conditioning that says your autonomy and freedom should be stifled or that you are confined to the box that society has placed you in based on the gender you were assigned at birth is rightfully being broken with this proud way of thinking and existing.
Media corporations and people in society as a greater whole can all contribute by starting simply with looking at their own actions and beliefs. Anderson urges everyone to look inside themselves and recognize whether they are creating a safe space for trans people in their local communities. Whether you know or not that you are coming in contact with a transgender person, there should be an inherent respect and safe intention in everyone’s actions.
For Anderson that means fighting back on transphobic jokes, asking employers if the insurance offers gender-affirming care, advocating for gender neutral bathrooms in communities or any other small but impactful step you can take locally.
In the film industry, this means working to create more opportunities for transgender people to find jobs and find fame simply by being who they are.
“We don’t have a transgender movie star, like a transgender Will Smith or Denzel Washington or Viola Davis. That largely connects to the opportunities that trans actors and actresses have been given and offered. In this industry we don’t have a Hollywood studio led by any trans people.”
These are institutional changes that society should make to broaden the scope of knowledge and human experience that the media is showing but more than that, it starts with a single person’s actions.
“I know it sounds innocuous but the reality is that we need people to stand up for and assert the humanity of trans people proudly and loudly.”
For Anderson, they believe that if there had been this education and awareness of transgender communities when they were growing up, they could have had an entirely different experience, one that they are hoping young transgender people can finally have today.
“Who might I have been if I knew the outsized impact that Black folks have had on culture and society since the beginning of time? Who could I have been if I had known about the trans pioneers? Imagine who I could have been if I had all of those things, imagine who [transgender people] could be when fully equipped with the information that accurately reflects the society that we live in currently and that we have always lived in.”
This bittersweet provocation proves the importance of enriching society with more culturally component resources and education and not allowing the erasure of entire communities from history.
“It requires us to remain vigilant in our storyteller, in our advocacy and everything else in between.”
This issue of trans-visibility and trans-violence is not just an issue for the moment. It is something to consider and combat everyday through education, compassion and practiced acts of inclusion. Storytellers and filmmakers can use their platforms to create more content that inspires audiences who, like Anderson, struggled to see themselves reflected in the media. Writers and journalists can tell the stories of individuals who are queer and can accurately comment on the experiences they face. It is the responsibility of creators and consumers alike to increase visibility with everyday small but important actionable changes.
The Symbiotic Relationship between Researchers, Storytellers, and Gen Z in Authentically Representing LGBTQ+ Youth
Media has the power to shape our communities, and that is especially important when we look at the representation of historically marginalized groups like the LGBTQ+ community. The ideas and beliefs contained in media content, both positive and negative, directly impact audience attitudes about the world around them. When featuring queer adolescent characters, it’s essential to listen to the perspectives of today’s teens and young adults and create stories that implement the real change and representation they want to see in their communities. In a cycle of listening, creating, and learning, storytellers, adolescents, and researchers can and should collaborate to create authentic depictions of LGBTQ+ adolescents that inspire and positively impact audiences.
Sheena Brevig, a filmmaker and the Workshop Director for the Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), draws from her own experiences as a queer person to foster more accurate representation of LGBTQ+ communities in film and television. Whether it be through facilitating workshops for large entertainment companies or working on smaller film projects, often in collaboration with other queer creators, she “really believes in the power of storytelling to break down walls and foster conversations that might be hard to have.”
For Brevig, the most beautiful part of this is creating projects that others can watch and relate to, find bits of themselves in, and serve as parallel experiences for the queer community.
“It’s about increasing visibility for the queer community as well as breaking down stigma. Particularly in queer communities of color and in my case, Asian and Japanese queer communities.”
For instance, Brevig’s LGBTQ+ Identities workshops have created vulnerable moments of sharing and healing between strangers.
“People end up sharing really vulnerable things and it seems to be somewhat cathartic, or it seems to start a conversation for the company on their end. We have played the role of this unique kind of start-the-conversation-space.”
Brevig and her team have even worked to tackle areas often not addressed when considering diversifying media landscapes, like the gaming industry. In collaboration with Activision Blizzard King Gaming, Brevig ran one of the most interactive workshops to support the breaking of old patterns and toxic representations of gender. The Body Diversity Workshop, which ran in collaboration with Warner Media explored “body-type diversity, representation, and character creation. It was something every single person in the audience could relate to, it doesn’t matter what gender you are or how old you are.”
Many industries and companies stick to stale tactics of performative LGBTQ+ representation – like adding rainbow colors to their company’s logo for Pride Month – and think it achieves the impact queer youth are asking for. In actuality, these are tiny changes that check a box but do not appease the greater audience who want more acknowledgment and action. These audience demands are long overdue and Brevig encourages the calling out of companies that have not completely embraced this wave of much-needed change.
“The queer community is critical of what they’re seeing and they want to feel represented, they will call out things that are through a heteronormative lens. ”
It is not just about quantity but quality of representation, for example expanding past just the gay white male lens and including all queer communities. This pursuit for intentional content that creates a genuinely positive impact is one of the best outcomes of Brevig’s workshops. They unify and inspire others to learn from her team’s guidance and plant seeds of change wherever they go.
Clearly, the impact is evident, with people who participated in CSS’ workshops applying learned empathy to shows and movies they create. After attending the workshops, Tim Federle, the showrunner for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, a show that ran on Disney Channel starting in 2019, was able to bring a fresh awareness and perspective to the writers' room when developing his diverse cast of queer characters. “It was a really full circle moment where I saw how the workshops we put on were applied. As a viewer, I saw how much I could reap the benefits of seeing this more inclusive and more accurately, authentically representative content,” said Brevig.
For Nare Aghadjanian, a rising sophomore at UCLA, who identifies as queer and fights for queer rights every day, seeing shows like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and other recently diversified shows is something she has a personal stake in. For Aghadjanian, feeling safe and represented is equally about a physical and digital environment.
At UCLA she says that at first she “wasn’t expecting to feel as safe being out as queer at [school] as [much as she] ended up being.” But Aghadjanian found a community.
“There was a Pride Admit Weekend that I attended online that made me feel really glad about going to LA for school, I knew that no matter what I would always have a community, and after being surrounded by a lot of homophobia that led to major mental health issues, it was a breath of fresh air to see the resource center and queer groups at UCLA. ”
Digital and intangible representation is just as important and impactful and Aghadjanian fiercely highlighted all the negativity and misrepresentation that is not being addressed. “I see so much racism, misogyny, transphobia, sexualization, and ableism.” She echoes the need to break free of the heteronormative patterns industries have fallen into, saying how mainstream movies and novels only focus on what makes them comfortable rather than what actually incites change. “When aiming for representations of marginalized groups it’s important actually to have it represent the general public - these movies shouldn’t be focused on the sexual aspect or just be one big coming out story.”
Nuanced storytelling is what Aghadjian is fighting for and she encourages every young, eager queer person to fight for it too. “I hope one day queer representation will turn towards actual representation and not just be a glorification of a white gay man, even if that representation is critical as well,” she said. The amplification of voices like hers is another step industries, researchers and creators alike should take, expanding their hearts to listen and implement what the youth actually feel.
“Queer people are not just a coming out story or solely experience violence, there should be an incorporation of all love.”
The benefit is nothing if not a win-win, allowing audiences to feel more seen, reflecting the world as it really is, and allowing studios to find more success and respect in the industry.
Research is the root of all this change and communication between researchers and creators is the conduit to representation that reflects the truth of queer stories and real-lived experiences. Adriana Manago, Ph.D., a cultural development psychologist, has been researching LGBTQ+ adolescents and the power of social media. She’s found that social media was not an obstacle but a tool for LGBTQ+ kids to explore themselves and use the language of the Internet to develop their queer identities in a place full of community and validation.
“There are three key navigational strategies on social media for engaging with cultural narratives for gender and sexuality on social media platforms: seeking and sharing information, creating queer community, and making choices about visibility and permanence.”
By engaging in all of these activities, LGBTQ+ teens can branch past the restrictive definitions of gender that Manago said are part of the hard-to-break rigidity of youth identity development. More than anything, a supportive environment whether digital or family-based is key to offering the honest and authentic space LGBTQ+ teens need to feel understood and represented in the media they are consuming.
“LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith. My students and I have examined variations in social media use and consequences depending on family contexts and intersections between gender, sexual, and ethnic identities. In these studies, we are finding that LGBTQ+ youth who have more supportive families and who provide resources for exploration and validation are less likely to rely on social media to understand and construct the self.”
Being proactive and utilizing the various intersecting identities of individuals to initiate change is one of the most important and beautiful tools of research. LGBTQ+ teens are using social media to find a safe space and to understand themselves, and so perhaps if creators understand this intimate need for a space to grow, this quest will be satiated much sooner. If Brevig’s comments and Aghadjian’s input are taken to heart, compounded with the robust research of psychologists like Manago, real change is on the horizon and this Pride Month brings us one step closer to it.
Why are sitcom dads still so inept?
This article originally appeared on The Conversation June 16, 2020.
From Homer Simpson to Phil Dunphy, sitcom dads have long been known for being bumbling and inept.
But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, sitcom dads tended to be serious, calm and wise, if a bit detached. In a shift that media scholars have documented, only in later decades did fathers start to become foolish and incompetent.
And yet the real-world roles and expectations of fathers have changed in recent years. Today’s dads are putting more time into caring for their children and see that role as more central to their identity.
Have today’s sitcoms kept up?
I study gender and the media, and I specialize in depictions of masculinity. In a study I did in 2020, my co-authors and I systematically look at the ways in which portrayals of sitcom fathers have and haven’t changed.
Why sitcom portrayals matter
Fictional entertainment can shape our views of ourselves and others. To appeal to broad audiences, sitcoms often rely on the shorthand assumptions that form the basis of stereotypes. Whether it’s the way they portray gay masculinity in “Will and Grace” or the working class in “Roseanne,” sitcoms often mine humor from certain norms and expectations associated with gender, sexual identity and class.
When sitcoms stereotype fathers, they seem to suggest that men are somehow inherently ill-suited for parenting. That sells actual fathers short and, in heterosexual, two-parent contexts, it reinforces the idea that mothers should take on the lion’s share of parenting responsibilities.
It was Tim Allen’s role as Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor of the 1990s series “Home Improvement” that inspired my initial interest in sitcom dads. Tim was goofy and childish, whereas Jill, his wife, was always ready – with a disapproving scowl, a snappy remark and seemingly endless stores of patience – to bring him back in line. The pattern matched an observation made by TV Guide television critic Matt Roush, who, in 2010, wrote, “It used to be that father knew best, and then we started to wonder if he knew anything at all.”
I published my first quantitative study on the depiction of sitcom fathers in 2001, focusing on jokes involving the father. I found that, compared with older sitcoms, dads in more recent sitcoms were the butt of the joke more frequently. Mothers, on the other hand, became less frequent targets of mockery over time. I viewed this as evidence of increasingly feminist portrayals of women that coincided with their growing presence in the workforce.
Studying the disparaged dad
In our new study, we wanted to focus on sitcom dads’ interactions with their children, given how fatherhood has changed in American culture.
We used what’s called “quantitative content analysis,” a common research method in communication studies. To conduct this sort of analysis, researchers develop definitions of key concepts to apply to a large set of media content. Researchers employ multiple people as coders who observe the content and individually track whether a particular concept appears.
For example, researchers might study the racial and ethnic diversity of recurring characters on Netflix original programs. Or they might try to see whether demonstrations are described as “protests” or “riots” in national news.
For our study, we identified 34 top-rated, family-centered sitcoms that aired from 1980 to 2017 and randomly selected two episodes from each. Next, we isolated 578 scenes in which the fathers were involved in “disparagement humor,” which meant the dads either made fun of another character or were made fun of themselves.
Then we studied how often sitcom dads were shown together with their kids within these scenes in three key parenting interactions: giving advice, setting rules or positively or negatively reinforcing their kids’ behavior. We wanted to see whether the interaction made the father look “humorously foolish” – showing poor judgment, being incompetent or acting childishly.
Interestingly, fathers were shown in fewer parenting situations in more recent sitcoms. And when fathers were parenting, it was depicted as humorously foolish in just over 50% of the relevant scenes in the 2000s and 2010s, compared with 18% in the 1980s and 31% in the 1990s sitcoms.
At least within scenes featuring disparagement humor, sitcom audiences, more often than not, are still being encouraged to laugh at dads’ parenting missteps and mistakes.
Fueling an inferiority complex?
The degree to which entertainment media reflect or distort reality is an enduring question in communication and media studies. In order to answer that question, it’s important to take a look at the data.
National polls by Pew Research Center show that from 1965 to 2016, the amount of time fathers reported spending on care for their children nearly tripled. These days, dads constitute 17% of all stay-at-home parents, up from 10% in 1989. Today, fathers are just as likely as mothers to say that being a parent is “extremely important to their identity.” They are also just as likely to describe parenting as rewarding.
Yet, there is evidence in the Pew data that these changes present challenges, as well. The majority of dads feel they do not spend enough time with their children, often citing work responsibilities as the primary reason. Only 39% of fathers feel they are doing “a very good job” raising their children.
Perhaps this sort of self-criticism is being reinforced by foolish and failing father portrayals in sitcom content.
Of course, not all sitcoms depict fathers as incompetent parents. The sample we examined stalled out in 2017, whereas TV Guide presented “7 Sitcom Dads Changing How we Think about Fatherhood Now” in 2019. In our study, the moments of problematic parenting often took place in a wider context of a generally quite loving depiction.
Still, while television portrayals will likely never match the range and complexity of fatherhood, sitcom writers can do better by dads by moving on from the increasingly outdated foolish father trope.
Professor of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
How toys became gendered – and why it’ll take more than a gender-neutral doll to change how boys perceive femininity
This article originally appeared on The Conversation on December 15, 2019.
Parents who want to raise their children in a gender-nonconforming way have a new stocking stuffer this year: the gender-neutral doll.
Announced in September, Mattel’s new line of gender-neutral humanoid dolls don’t clearly identify as either a boy or a girl. The dolls come with a variety of wardrobe options and can be dressed in varying lengths of hair and clothing styles.
But can a doll – or the growing list of other gender-neutral toys – really change the way we think about gender?
Mattel says it’s responding to research that shows “kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms.” Given the results of a recent study reporting that 24% of U.S. adolescents have a nontraditional sexual orientation or gender identity, such as bisexual or nonbinary, the decision makes business sense.
As a developmental psychologist who researches gender and sexual socialization, I can tell you that it also makes scientific sense. Gender is an identity and is not based on someone’s biological sex. That’s why I believe it’s great news that some dolls will better reflect how children see themselves.
Unfortunately, a doll alone is not going to overturn decades of socialization that have led us to believe that boys wear blue, have short hair and play with trucks; whereas girls like pink, grow their hair long and play with dolls. More to the point, it’s not going to change how boys are taught that masculinity is good and femininity is something less – a view that my research shows is associated with sexual violence.
Pink girls and blue boys
The kinds of toys American children play with tend to adhere to a clear gender binary.
Toys marketed to boys tend to be more aggressive and involve action and excitement. Girl toys, on the other hand, are usually pink and passive, emphasizing beauty and nurturing.
It wasn’t always like this.
Around the turn of the 20th century, toys were rarely marketed to different genders. By the 1940s, manufacturers quickly caught on to the idea that wealthier families would buy an entire new set of clothing, toys and other gadgets if the products were marketed differently for both genders. And so the idea of pink for girls and blue for boys was born.
Today, gendered toy marketing in the U.S. is stark. Walk down any toy aisle and you can clearly see who the audience is. The girl aisle is almost exclusively pink, showcasing mostly Barbie dolls and princesses. The boy aisle is mostly blue and features trucks and superheroes.
Breaking down the binary
The emergence of a gender-neutral doll is a sign of how this binary of boys and girls is beginning to break down – at least when it comes to girls.
A 2017 study showed that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said it was a good thing for parents to encourage young girls to play with toys or do activities “associated with the opposite gender.” The share rises to 80% for women and millennials.
But when it came to boys, support dropped significantly, with 64% overall – and far fewer men – saying it was good to encourage them to do things associated with girls. Those who were older or more conservative were even more likely to think it wasn’t a good idea.
Reading between the lines suggests there’s a view that traits stereotypically associated with men – such as strength, courage and leadership – are good, whereas those tied to femininity – such as vulnerability, emotion and caring – are bad. Thus boys receive the message that wanting to look up to girls is not OK.
And many boys are taught over and over throughout their lives that exhibiting “female traits” is wrong and means they aren’t “real men.” Worse, they’re frequently punished for it – while exhibiting masculine traits like aggression are often rewarded.
How this affects sexual expectations
This gender socialization continues into emerging adulthood and affects men’s romantic and sexual expectations.
For example, a 2015 study I conducted with three co-authors explored how participants felt their gender affected their sexual experiences. Roughly 45% of women said they expected to experience some kind of sexual violence just because they are women; whereas none of the men reported a fear of sexual violence and 35% said their manhood meant they should expect pleasure.
And these findings can be linked back to the kinds of toys we play with. Girls are taught to be passive and strive for beauty by playing with princesses and putting on makeup. Boys are encouraged to be more active or even aggressive with trucks, toys guns and action figures; building, fighting and even dominating are emphasized. A recent analysis of Lego sets demonstrates this dichotomy in what they emphasize for boys – building expertise and skilled professions – compared with girls – caring for others, socializing and being pretty. Thus, girls spend their childhoods practicing how to be pretty and care for another person, while boys practice getting what they want.
This results in a sexual double standard in which men are the powerful actors and women are subordinate. And even in cases of sexual assault, research has shown people will put more blame on a female rape victim if she does something that violates a traditional gender role, such as cheating on her husband – which is more accepted for men than for women.
A 2016 study found that adolescent men who subscribe to traditional masculine gender norms are more likely to engage in dating violence, such as sexual assault, physical or emotional abuse and stalking.
Teaching gender tolerance
Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls offer much-needed variety in kids’ toys, but children – as well as adults – also need to learn more tolerance of how others express gender differently than they do. And boys in particular need support in appreciating and practicing more traditional feminine traits, like communicating emotion or caring for someone else – skills that are required for any healthy relationship.
Gender neutrality represents the absence of gender – not the tolerance of different gender expression. If we emphasize only the former, I believe femininity and the people who express it will remain devalued.
So consider doing something gender-nonconforming with your children’s existing dolls, such as having Barbie win a wrestling championship or giving Ken a tutu. And encourage the boys in your life to play with them too.
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
How a masculine culture that favors sexual conquests gave us today’s ‘incels’
This article originally appeared on The Conversation on June 6, 2018.
After the recent shooting at the Santa Fe, Texas, high school, the mother of one of the victims claimed that the perpetrator had specifically killed her daughter because she refused his repeated advances, embarrassing him in front of his classmates. A month prior, a young man, accused of driving a van into a crowded sidewalk that killed ten people in Toronto, posted a message on Facebook minutes before the attack, that celebrated another misogynist killer and said: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!”
These and other mass killings suggest an ongoing pattern of heterosexual, mostly white men perpetrating extreme violence, in part, as retaliation against women.
To some people it might appear that these are only a collection of disturbed, fringe individuals. However, as a scholar who studies masculinity and deviant subcultures, I see incels as part of a larger misogynist culture.
Masculinity and sexual conquest
Incels, short for “involuntary celibates,” are a small, predominately online community of heterosexual men who have not had sexual or romantic relationships with women for a long time. Incels join larger existing groups of men with anti-feminist or misogynist tendencies such as Men Going Their Own Way, who reject women and some conservative men’s rights activists, as well as male supremacists.
Such groups gather in the “manosphere,” the network of blogs, subreddits and other online forums, in which such men bluntly express their anger against feminists while claiming they are the real victims.
Incels blame women for their sexual troubles, vilifying them as shallow and ruthless, while simultaneously expressing jealousy and contempt for high-status, sexually successful men. They share their frustrations in Reddit forums, revealing extremely misogynist views and in some cases advocating violence against women. Their grievances reflect the shame of their sexual “failures,” as, for them, sexual success remains central to real manhood.
The popular 2005 film “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” nicely illustrates the importance of sexual success, or even conquest, to achieving manhood, as a group of friends attempts to rectify the protagonist’s failure while simultaneously mocking him and bragging about their own exploits. “Getting laid” is a rite of passage and failure indicates a failed masculinity.
Cloaked in the anonymity of online forums, incels’ frustrations become misplaced anger at women. Ironically, while they chafe under what they perceive as women’s judgment and rejection, they actually compare themselves to other men, anticipating men’s judgment. In other words, incels seek to prove themselves to other men, or to the unrealistic standards created by men, then blame women for a problem of men’s own making. Women become threats, cast as callous temptresses for withholding sex from, in their perception, deserving men.
Entitlement
If heterosexual sex is a cultural standard signifying real manhood for a subset of men, then women must be sexually available. When unable to achieve societal expectations, some lash out in misogynist or violent ways. Sociologists Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel call this “aggrieved entitlement,” a “dramatic loss” of what some men believe to be their privilege, that results in a backlash.
Noting that a disproportionate number of mass shooters are white, heterosexual and middle class, sociologist Eric Madfis demonstrates how entitlement fused with downward mobility and disappointing life events provoke a “hypermasculine,” response of increased aggression and in some case violent retribution.
According to scholar of masculinity Michael Schwalbe, masculinity and maleness are, fundamentally, about domination and maintaining power.
Given this, incels represent a broader misogynist backlash to women’s, people of color’s and LGBTQI people’s increasing visibility and representation in formerly all-male spheres such as business, politics, sports and the military.
Despite the incremental, if limited, gains won by women’s and LGBTQI movements, misogyny and violence against women remain entrenched across social life. Of course not all men accept this; some actively fight against sexism and violence against women. Yet killings such as those in Toronto and Santa Fe, and the misogynist cultural background behind them, remind many women that their value ultimately lies not in their intelligence and ideas, but in their bodies and sexual availability.
Fringe men or mainstream misogyny?
Dismissing incels and other misogynist groups as disturbed, fringe individuals obscures the larger hateful cultural context that continues in the wake of women’s, immigrants’, LGBTQI’s and people of color’s demands for full personhood.
While most incels will not perpetrate a mass shooting, the toxic collision of aggrieved entitlement and the easy availability of guns suggests that without significant changes in masculinity, the tragedies will continue.
The incel “rebellion” is hardly rebellious. It signals a retreat to classic forms of male domination.
Associate Professor, Grinnell College
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
How Parents Can Support Their Transgender Teens
A new study shows that teens exploring their gender identity value simple acts of caring from their parents the most.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
When teenagers confide that they are transgender or uncertain about their gender identity, their parents may be unsure how to offer support.
To understand what types of family support transgender adolescents consider helpful, a Stanford research team asked 25 of them for their thoughts. The team also interviewed the teens’ parents.
The actions teens said they valued most were among the simplest, the researchers discovered. Their findings were published in March in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Teens said they most appreciated having parents use their preferred name and pronoun, as well as knowing that their parents were emotionally available and listening to their concerns.
The teenagers usually rated their parents as more supportive than the parents rated themselves, said Tandy Aye, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and a pediatric endocrinologist at the Stanford Children’s Health Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Clinic. Aye is the senior author of the study.
“Even when parents are thinking that there is tension over gender identity, that parent-child relationship is still super important,” said Aye. She spoke with Stanford Medicine News about her research.
Erin Digitale: Set the stage for this study. What was previously known about the value of family support for transgender children?
Tandy Aye: Kristina Olson, a researcher in Seattle, has studied how important family support is for young kids going through gender transition or who are gender-expansive, meaning their gender identity doesn’t fit neatly into traditional “boy” or “girl” categories. If they have a supportive family from the beginning, children who are transgender and gender-expansive don’t experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, or suicide compared with cisgender peers. Without family support, all those mental health risks increase substantially. And having family use a child’s preferred name and pronoun has been shown to be protective.
ED: What was new about your approach?
TA: In our study, we were trying to classify the commonalities in families that were supportive. No one had really looked at both perspectives—of transgender teens and of their parents—to see what support looks like.
We used a combination of closed-ended survey questions and open-ended interviews to get information about what parents and teens were thinking, saying, and doing at pivotal times during the teenager’s gender journey. We interviewed parents and adolescents separately; it was very important that we got their views independently.
Among those who seek care at our gender clinic, we meet all sorts of families, and as we were doing this study, we realized that there’s support and there’s acceptance, but they don’t always go hand in hand. Hopefully, support leads to acceptance. We hope we can use what we discovered to help families who are not initially supportive learn how to support their teens.
ED: What did teens tell you about the support they got from their families?
TA: The adolescents always rated their parents to be more supportive than the parents rated themselves. I think that’s surprising, since there can be times of tension between parents and children during adolescence; it is a hard time for anyone. Our finding just shows how much teens really value their parents.
When we asked each group what actions they saw as showing support, parents talked about taking their teen to the gender clinic, getting them connected to resources. But what the majority of adolescents wanted most was for parents just to use their preferred name and pronoun. That validated what another study had found.
Parents come to us worried about what a gender clinic would do, with lots of medical questions and concerns about taking those first steps toward the medical aspects of a gender transition. But we found that what adolescents want is just for their families to acknowledge that they’re exploring their gender. If you can use their preferred name and pronoun, it affirms that you support that exploration.
ED: You also talked with parents about their internal reactions. What did they say?
TA: We asked the parents: While you’re being supportive, what’s the struggle you’re having? I don’t think researchers have asked that of the families of transgender or gender-questioning adolescents before. We found that even parents who are being very supportive are still internally having an adjustment.
The things that were the hardest adjustments for them, interestingly, included using the child’s preferred name and pronoun. The child’s original name was the name that parents really thought about choosing before their child was born, and for the child to say that’s not their name anymore was often challenging for the parents. As to the pronoun, parents would say, “We’ve used it for so long.”
But most parents we spoke to were hiding their adjustment because they wanted to be perceived by their children as being as supportive as possible. I think this is a key takeaway from the study, especially for mental health providers. When the parents come in with their child and say, “Yes, we’re supportive,” it’s important to acknowledge what parents are experiencing and talk to parents about providing services for them, to help them process their own emotions.
ED: What takeaways from this study will be helpful for other families that you see in the Stanford Children’s gender clinic?
TA: When families come to us, they’re often thinking about hormones, surgery, and how difficult all those treatments at end of their child’s transition are going to be. Typically we bring parents back to the moment they’re in and ask, “Where is your child now? Where are you?”
Sometimes parents say, “We’re just having difficulty using the child’s preferred name and pronoun.” We talk about acceptance and ask them to just practice using the name and pronoun at home, and acknowledge to the family how important that support is to their teen. We also let them know that their teen may argue against them or shut down, but that the love they have for them is not forgotten, and it’s still very important to foster that relationship.
Our new research adds to the evidence that transgender adolescents’ perception of their parents’ support may be the key protective factor in the teens’ mental health. It’s that perception of support that parents want to nurture. What can you do? It’s things like offering a hug, being there to listen. These are things anyone can do. They are free and fully reversible, whatever path the teen takes in their gender journey. There are no medical side effects to listening and giving hugs, or trying your child’s preferred name and pronoun. It’s all about helping the teen fully explore who they are.
Pediatrics science writer in the Office of Communications, Stanford University
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Gender Representation On-Screen
Children begin to form ideas and concepts of gender early on in life. Specifically, by age 2, children start to use gender to guide their social and learning preferences and by age 3, children’s awareness of gender develops into a rigid social category and they become increasingly aware of basic gender stereotypes. With this, it can be argued that preschoolers are particularly vulnerable to these types of stereotypical messages both in society and in the media.
Although children gather (and observe) a lot of information about gender from their parents, peers, and teachers, screen media also plays a large role in children’s learning about gender and gender roles. Children in the 21st century are spending significant amounts of time watching, engaging, interacting, and communicating with a range of media and media characters. However, when closely examining the types of characters they are interacting with (specifically in children’s television programming), scholars have found a consistent presence of one-dimensional, stereotypical characters that are often defined by their social group, such as their gender. Specifically, these stereotypical portrayals are largely evident when examining the appearance and behaviours of female media characters.
For example, content analyses have consistently observed that girls/women characters are significantly more likely to be thin and sexualized than male characters (e.g., wearing revealing clothing). It has also been found that male characters are more likely to engage in problem-solving than female characters, specifically by using STEM and physical power, whereas females are more likely to use magic and talking to solve problems.
Regular engagement with these types of characters can alter and influence children’s beliefs and attitudes about various issues (e.g. gender roles) and might largely impact children’s perceptions about different groups of people. Recent studies have found that exposure to stereotypical television clips led to different effects than counter-stereotypical clips. For example, Bond (2016) discovered that girls who watched a stereotypical clip of a television show, were more likely to express interest in stereotypical feminine careers and were less likely to draw a female when asked to depict what they thought a scientist looked like.
Overall, it is clear that media has the power to shape children’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours about gender and content creators must be actively aware of this as they create new projects.
Actionable Insights
Here some actionable insights for content creators:
Aim for gender parity and gender equality. Male characters should not consistently outnumber female characters—they should be equal and featured in the same types of roles (e.g., lead roles).
This also means increasing the number of diverse characters in the cast, who may not identify as male and/or female.
Showcase women and female-identifying characters in complex and intricate roles instead of rigid, simple, and stereotypical roles.
A character’s gender should not define who they are. There is nothing wrong with behaving or appearing in a gender stereotypical manner, but consistently portraying women/female-identifying characters this way can be harmful. Give these characters more substance!
Create multi-dimensional characters.
Develop detailed character profiles that showcase the different layers to a character. If we want children to see themselves reflected on-screen, we must create realistic characters who have human-like qualities. This means showing all sides of a character—regardless of gender (e.g., strengths and weaknesses, varying emotions and personalities, struggling and overcoming obstacles, etc.).
Adrianna Ruggiero
Ph.D. Student, Ryerson University
Junior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers
The Fun of Empowering Girls
For over 20 years, I worked in public broadcasting making shows for young people. We made television and digital content and even hosted events in communities across the country. As a public broadcaster, I was keenly aware of what we needed to work hard on, particularly gender stereotypes and gender roles — and, less overt gender bias — in Hollywood movies and TV. We needed to empower children — especially girls. We knew from research that if girls saw positive girl characters and women characters in television and film, it could have an incredible impact. But no matter how hard we worked, we couldn’t control what happened after they saw a program. We knew that the impact would be higher if the ideas in the shows were talked about at home. And even higher if a parent watched with them.
As a parent, I want great role models too. Like most parents, I feel a lot of pressure to try to make all the right choices. We’re fighting gender stereotypes in the media and gender bias in the culture. It can be a lot. So, I think it’s time to make a switch and take the pressure off.
I say let’s have fun empowering the girls (and boys!) in our lives. Instead of trying to find all the right everything to introduce them to, let’s make it an adventure together.
With your own kids, try to think outside of the box to find amazing female characters in your own movie and TV watching — and women and girls in your own neighbourhood or town, too! Make it a quest. A Mission. Make a chart. Or just do it for fun. Find what works with your family dynamic but make the goal finding awesome women near where you live. Here are some suggestions:
Make it a challenge to see who can find the coolest girl character in a TV show. And then watch it together. Why is she cool? How does she conform to gender roles?
Go to the library and see if any women authors are speaking. Or reading from their picture or chapter books.
Check out cool women running for office where you live and go and hear them speak. Even if your kids are too young to understand the issues, all the clapping and sign waiving will make it fun. A great way to combat gender bias is to see women being supported by other women and men.
In your play- whether it’s with stuffed animals, dolls or action characters- make the role-playing about inventing or leading (hey let’s find a way to invent a colour changing t-shirt or create a cardboard starship to fly us to the stars!). Remember that young kids’ imaginations are way better than ours as adults, so let them run with it.
Celebrate the women in your extended family who have interesting jobs- in science, architecture, a small startup- and have them tell your kids about it
Go old school. Kids still love to play board games. Print off pictures of powerful women- from politicians to pilots- that you can glue to cardboard and use as pieces in any of your favourite family games instead of the regular pieces.
And remember moms, research shows that this isn’t just about our kids. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that working women who viewed images of powerful women succeeded in stressful leadership tasks. So have fun with it!
Kim Wilson
Media Advisor & Consultant of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.
How to Detox Masculinity
How to Detox Masculinity
Poem by Nayyirah Waheed
Growing up as a sensitive youth who attended a conservative all-boys school, I have often felt out of place amongst my fellow men. Popular television shows like Entourage and movies like The Hangover showed me the ways in which guys were supposed to connect with each other and interact with women, but I struggled to relate to the misogynistic behaviors depicted on the screen and echoed by the men around me. Today, as a writer of films and television, I see the power that popular culture has in shaping our conceptions of manhood; and I believe it’s our responsibility as content creators to detoxify the destructive messaging that has pervaded mainstream media for far too long.
The term “toxic masculinity” is being used more and more these days, but few are defining exactly what it means and why it must be challenged. So let’s take a look at the startling facts of some recent psychological studies to help shed light on the damaging expectations ingrained by historical patriarchy.
Just this year, the American Psychological Association released new guidelines for practice with men and boys, with more than 40 years of research showing that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.”
For the inward echoes, we need only look to a 2018 CDC report, which revealed that suicide rates among American men are over three times that of women. This imbalance was largely attributed to internalized standards that men shouldn’t express emotions or show vulnerability, thus leading to self-destructive behaviors in lieu of seeking help.
The outward echoes of toxic masculinity can be seen in a 2018 United Nations study on global homicide patterns, which revealed that “intimate partner violence against women and girls is rooted in widely-accepted gender norms about men’s authority… and men’s use of violence to exert control over women. Research shows that men and boys who adhere to rigid views of gender roles and masculinity… are more likely to use violence against a partner.”
These timely studies amount to a harsh reality that toxic masculinity is killing men and women alike; and that its deadly inheritance is deeply rooted in cultural norms. In order for society to evolve past these damaging traditional viewpoints, we need to look at how portrayals of men in the media have perpetuated harmful behaviors and offer positive alternatives to content creators.
To combat toxic masculinity in popular culture and beyond, here are a few actionable insights for writers:
Show men crying, expressing vulnerability, and seeking help for emotional distress.
Model male characters who are not controlling with their partners, but rather supportive of women’s freedom and independence.
Depict men offering emotional support to each other and holding a safe space for vulnerability.
Avoid glorifying “boys clubs” that encourage traditional masculine repression and misogynistic exclusion.
Offer representations of equal partnerships where men are not the assumed authority.
Demonstrate how men can stand up to other men who are engaged in toxic rhetoric or behavior against women.
Portray male-female friendships that are not rooted in sexual prospects.
Highlight vulnerability as a male character’s strength, rather than portraying it as an emasculating weakness or the butt of a joke.
It’s time to detox masculinity. Starting with the screen.
Brian McAuley, MFA
WGA Screenwriter
Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of the Arts
Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers
Flip the Script: Why It’s Time to Combat Gender Stereotypes of Boys
“I’m glad we’ve begun to raise our daughters more like our sons but it will never work unless we start to raise our sons more like our daughters.” Gloria Steinem
Did you know that 63% of men believe they are encouraged to seize sex whenever they can? The messages we send our boys are confusing and can result in grave misunderstandings, even among the best intentioned. The heterosexual script, a concept established in social science, plays out in real life AND plays out on screen, even in 2018.
Men Want Sex/ Women set limits
Men attract women through power/ Women attract men through sexiness
Men avoid commitment/ Women seek it
We pass on these gender stereotypes without recognizing our unconscious contribution to the formulaic scripts. And media outranks schools and parents as being sources of sex for young people.
By showing characters that don’t play into the stereotypes, our boys can embrace all sides of themselves. Here are some research based ideas on how to balanced gender roles for characters of all ages.
Show boys and girls playing together because boys who have female friends are less likely to think of girls as sexual conquests.
Show “tough” male characters being sensitive because role models are important, particularly for boys.
Show boys doing housework. Girls still do 2 hours more than boys a week.
Show girls making the first move, romantically and sexually, boys talking about love and girls buying flowers for boys.
It’s time to flip the script.
Yalda T. Uhls, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers